Final Blog From the Whetstones

Greetings everyone who might still be checking us out and of course to those who just so happened to stumble across our blog site!

It has been an eventful final month serving as Disaster Response Coordinators for the Alabama South District Church of the Nazarene. We spent some time at our District Assembly where we voted in a new District Superintendent - Rev. Mark Berry. He had his wife Debbie will serve tremendously but please continue to pray for them as they transition into this position and begin serving in this position June 1.

Danielle, Natalie, and I also finalized our responsibilities with Nazarene Disaster Response. We spent the day in New Orleans, LA. There has been a great deal of progress all over the south, but there is and will be for a long time, still plenty of work yet to be done, and they need help! If you are interested in serving, in LA or Mississippi! Please check out the NDR web site- www.ncmi.org

Finally, we would like to say thank you to everyone. We not only enjoyed serving here but were blessed, challenged, and stretched in and through God handiwork! Thank you to everyone who helped in the vast variety of ways- especially through your prayers.

We are looking forward to where the Lord shall lead us in the future but for now, we reside in Daphne, AL and are serving at Lighthouse Church of the Nazarene. Please come and check out our web site www.lighthousenaz.blogspot.com and if your interested in serving in a mission field, we've got one!

Grace and peace to you all!

Tim, Danielle, and our newest member, Natalie!

P.S. FOR NEW UPDATES ON POSSIBLE MISSION TRIPS OR FOR INFORMATION ON DISASTER RESPONSE HELP PLEASE GO TO THE ALABAMA SOUTH DISTRICT WEB SITE. (The link is located on the right)

Our end is almost here . . .

Greetings to our faithful blog readers, and for those who just so happened to stumble across this post!

We (Alabama South District Disaster Response Team) would like to take a minute to thank everyone who has supported us in so many different ways, and especially to those who have been so faithful to continue to pray and lift up the efforts down here in the deep south. God has most definitely blessed your prayers!

This past week we said goodbye to our last two "official" teams in the Bayou. The Alabama South District will continue to have their web site (http://www.geocities.com/alasouthdr/) up and running and if there happens to be a team that would like to come and continue to help with the ongoing work in Bayou la Batre and Grand Bay, Alabama the district volunteers will do the best they can to help. However, the official team of Pastor Charles and Glenda Martin, and Pastor Tim and Danielle Whetstone will be taking a break - well, were going back to being full-time Pastors (as if that job ever really stopped?!).

As I mentioned we said goodbye this past Sunday to our last two teams: Corvallis, Oregon and the Scott's from Frankfurt, Indiana. These two teams were able to help us out a great deal with finishing up two major projects and few other minor ones that were still hanging over us!

Thanks for your help as well as worshiping and fellowship with us at Lighthouse Church of the Nazarene.

We will be posting a few more posts soon, so be looking forward to our "closing remarks" and what lies ahead for the Whetstones as God continues to lead us!

But for now, blessings and grace be with you all this Holly Week and may your celebration this Easter be one filled with His Resurrection!

Many Thanks!

Thursday afternoon and the work has not stopped! WHY? We believe because of prayer!

We have had not only a terrific couple, Ken and Betty with us for a couple months, but am outstanding team from Minnesota as well. Thank you Minnesota District Disaster Response team. We are extremely grateful for your help.

As our team from MN left us, a few days later some old friends pulled in to some familiar surroundings. Ryan Knapp and Marcus Winn who spent a couple months with us this past summer came back! And not only did they come over their "spring break" from Olivet Nazarene University, but they helped us power wash a couple houses, deliver some materials, and organized the distribution of over 80 food boxes to families in our Grand Bay/Bayou La Batre area. That makes THREE AWESOME FREE FOOD distributions in just over two months.

Thanks on behalf of the Bayou and the Nazarene Church, to the MN district and Ryan and Marcus!

And again, thanks fellas for coming back. It was a pleasure to catch up, hang-out, and have some helping hands around!

We have two more teams still to come this month, but then it will quiet down for the Church of the Nazarene volunteers-- Tim Whetstone and Charles Martin-- well, at least for us in the Bayou. We will be returning to pastoring in different areas full-time. Please keep us in your prayers as this has already begun to be a big transition.

Yet, we know that God will continue to work in the Bayou it His mysteriously amazing ways!

Blog at you all soon . . .

Back to Minnesota...Bur-r-r-r

It is with heavy hearts that we prepare to leave Grand Bay and Bayou La Batre. We have each made friends and have been touched in ways never expected by the effects of the hurricaine on the residents here. We have felt so privledged to be able to be Gods hands and feet in this area at "a time such as now". Even though we have worked hard we also managed to find the time to enjoy a tour of the USS Alabama and the ladies enjoyed the beautiful Bellingrath Gardens.
I wonder if one ever feels like they have completed their task. It is now time for each of us to leave here, but we leave thanking God that He has provided other workers to come and take over where we have left off. It is our prayer that the residents in the community and the teams to follow will have benefited by our work here.

May God bless Grand Bay and Bayou La Batre!

It takes TEAM work!

Minnesota team has arrived in the Bayou! Those of us who have been here feel very blessed at having all this help! It does take a team effort...We are excited! We are all looking forward to accomplishing great things with Gods help. This team is anxious to provide physical help to the community in the line of housing and food but even more important is the ability to show Jesus to this community! Pray for us as we work together to be "salt and light" to the Bayou. As we continue the work that was started by those who came before us, and will continue by those who come after us.Work hard...Rest hard!

And the Work goes on!

We are all sorry to see Dottie head back to Minnesota. We really do understand about responsibilites but we will miss her. She has been busy every minute since she arrived, and always with thoughts of love for the people we have been called to serve. We pray she will have a safe flight back to the cold north country and that God will bless her for all her hard work.

But the work does go on and God continues to send workers. Phil and Carol Neson arrived last week from Mpls, MN and dug right

in...Phil is the director of the Work & Witness from the Minnesota District. You know what that means?? You are right, he has a team of workers coming from Minnesota this week! It will be fun to see what we get accomplished with a working team.


Community wide food distribution went well this week. Perhaps to well. We had enough food for nearly 100 families. We advertised it from 9 AM to 1 PM. Unfortunately by 10:10 AM the food was gone. That testifies to the great need in this area. We will do another food distribution on the 23rd and pray God will see to it that the ones who are in greatest need will get what they need.

God is so good!!

God has again sent help to this area! Friday afternoon around 2:30 PM Lee and Dottie from Brainerd, Minnesota arrived!
They said they were anxious to "get to work". Not wanting to disappoint them, we gave them enough time to change into work clothes. Within one hour they were laying a floor...and so it goes in the Bayou!!

What a blessing they have been! They will be here most of the month. We are also looking forward to the middle of February when a team of 12 members from Minnesota will be here. Our prayer is that God will take all of our efforts and enlarge and multiply them to meet the needs in this area.
Besides the home repair projects that are underway there is a need for food distributions. We will be doing two food distributions to the community in Feb. Both sponsured by NDR (Nazarene Disaster Relief). I am excited to see what God is going to do next!!

From the Eyes of a Newcomer

Living in the north central area of Minnesota, we just weren't prepared for the amount of damage that is still evident this long after Katrina. In fact I am somewhat ashamed to say that we honestly thought that the damage would be repaired and everyone would be 'back on their feet'. We even wondered why we were coming and wondering what type of help, if any, would still be needed. During our drive from Texas to Bayou La Batre all of our questions were answered! There was much more devestation than we ever believed would still be here.
Perhaps you're thinking like we did. You'd like to help IF you are needed but you fear you are no longer really needed...Come on down! You ARE needed! Many are still living in FEMA trailers and unfortunately we have met one and heard of others whose FEMA trailer was taken back to FEMA leaving them in unlivable conditions.
We are currently repairing the home of a single lady who had been living in her bedroom since her trailer had been returned to FEMA because the rest of the home was unlivable. Her roof had blown off during the storm allowing her home to become saturated. Her walls and floor had buckled. Can you imagine the mold and rot from the dampness that had invaded her home after all this time of heat and moisture? If you should feel the "call" to help others, answer that call. The rewards far outnumber the
demands on your time.
I am so thankful for this opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of others. My main prayer is that my "old" body not let me down!
We are excited about the arrival of 4 more from Minnesota. They will be arriving the end of the month. In February a Work and Witness team will be here from Minnesota. We are looking forward to seeing much happen in the Bayou before we leave the end of February...we will keep you posted!

Help Has Arrived . . .

Greetings to our faithful readers. And to those who just happened to stumble upon this blog or who may be visiting us for the first time!

It's a beautiful day in Southern Alabama-- crisp, cool, and a lot of sunshine. Yet, this is not the only thing for us volunteers down here to be excited about this new 2007 year. In fact, we are excited about a great many things, and the first being that we have received some new "long-term volunteers"! After Jesse and Jordan departed, Charles and Tim have been praying . . . and now we have Ken and Betty here with us.


Having been here only since Saturday January 6th, they have already jumped right on in and started helping us on one of our projects and one of our most faithful teams from Pismo Beach, CA. Bridget and Jim have already praised the arrival of Ken and Betty as well. And all together we declare that; God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good!We are looking forward to the next 6 weeks with Ken and Betty and of course the teams still to come. We ask for your prayers as we work hard at trying to finish our remaining projects, and again, if you would like to come, COME!

It was also a wonderful blessing of ours to show some friends of ours from Rome, Italy around the Bayou. Danielle and I spent three and half wonderful years in Italy and over those years met some incredible people. Emanuele and Claudia are two terrific people, and special friends to us. Thanks for coming all the way from Roma to see how God has been working through people in the Bayou.

Finally, look forward to many upcoming blogs as Ken and Betty will be blogging soon as well . . . and you won't want to miss their stories!

Grace and peace to you all this New Year!

Happy New Year!

A new year is upon us and the demands of the Bayou have lessened . . . Thanks be to God for His work through many of your prayers, many of your labors, and most of all through the many ways you have loved Bayou La Batre.

There are some changes that will be taking place in the Bayou soon and thats not just the glorious departing of so many trailers, like in front of the Jone's house . . . But that Lord willing we will have some more long-term help through January and February. We will know for sure in the next couple days.Be praying that this does happen. But until then we need to offer up some more thanks!

Othello, Washington Church of the Nazarene came and brought another team to help us this past week. Arriving December 26th with Christmas and New Years happening all around them, they found the time to "gift" some of our home owners this blessed season.
Thanks to the team for their work, to the church for their continued support, and to our Lord for continuing to answer so many of our prayers. It was expecially great to have you here helping us in a very busy time for the Alabama Team. Even though we only got to share a few moments together (including our new baby girl Natalie), we are extremely grateful for your help, and love for the Bayou.

We look forward to the teams that are still yet to come these next couple months, and we covet the continued prayers of all of you.

Grace and peace be with you all this blessed 2007 New Year and may He bring Himself in a brand NEW way to you as well.